• Intra-generational Equity: Livelihood Security for the Poor: To ensure equitable access to environmental resources and quality for all sections of society, and in particular, to ensure that poor communities, which are most dependent on environmental resources for their livelihoods, are assured secure access to these resources.
• Inter-generational Equity: To ensure judicious use of environmental resources to meet the needs and aspirations of the present and future generations.
• Integration of Environmental Concerns in Economic and Social Development: To integrate environmental concerns into policies, plans, programmes, and projects for economic and social development.
• Efficiency in Environmental Resource Use: To ensure efficient use of environmental resources in the sense of reduction in their use per unit of economic output, to minimize adverse environmental impacts.
• Environmental Governance: To apply the principles of good governance (transparency, rationality, accountability, reduction in time and costs, participation, and regulatory independence) to the management and regulation of use of environmental resources.
• Enhancement of Resources for Environmental Conservation: To ensure higher resource flows, comprising finance, technology, management skills, traditional knowledge, and social capital, for environmental conservation through mutually beneficial multistakeholder partnerships between local communities, public agencies, the academic and research community, investors, and multilateral and bilateral development partners.